Notes & News from the Creative Writing Program at Eastern Michigan University

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Looking for a local poetry reading? Check out Andy Schuck (EMU M.A. in Creative Writing, 2002) and Donora Hillard at the Lawrence Street Gallery (22620 Woodward Ave., Ferndale, MI 48220) on Friday, July 15, 6:30-8:45 p.m. as part of the latest installment of the Poetic Travelers series.

Andy Schuck received his Masters in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University in 2002. It was there that he began pushing his lyrical voice in unconventional directions. Influenced by Janet Kaufman’s intertextual courses and Christine Hume’s language-based explorations, Andy experimented with recontextualizing words/works, the look of language on the page as well as with the sound of it on the tongue. New York School poets like Ron Padgett and John Ashberry brought surreal flights of imagination and a good dose of humor. And a previous project fusing images drawn from listening to Miles Davis’ controversial album Bitches Brew took shape. Today, Andy is working on a more reflective project drawn in response to Lynn Heijinian’s My Life book. Andy’s work has appeared in Mojo Risin’, Illya’s Honey, Cellar Roots, Main Street Rag, Skanky Possum , and Edge Magazine. He taught writing and literature at EMU for 3 years and is now a librarian at the Westland Public Library, where he has led a variety of writing groups.

Donora Hillard’s poetry collection Theology of the Body (Gold Wake Press, 2010) was a bestseller in Women’s Studies at Amazon.com. Her work has appeared in Best of the Web (Dzanc Books, 2010), FRiGG, Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer (W.W. Norton & Company, 2010), Monkeybicycle, and elsewhere. In fall 2011 she will begin teaching at Wayne State University, where she is pursuing a PhD in Rhetoric and Composition with an emphasis in poetics and postpedagogy. She co-edits Cow Heavy Books and Midwestern Gothic and is completing a poetry manuscript entitled Jeff Bridges.